THE teenage monster who viciously battered 87-year-old Edith Chapman had scrawled menacing messages on the baseball bat he used to club the frail pensioner almost to death.

The 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had penned the German 'Achtung' - 'Danger' - and drawn a skull and cross bones on the two-and-a-half feet-long weapon he used to mercilessly beat Miss Chapman with.

Witnesses told police he scrawled similar menacing messages on his school books.

Chilling new details of the savage attack at the frail spinster's home on Chester Road, Hazel Grove, last September, emerged at an inquest into Miss Chapman's death this week.

Miss Chapman suffered multiple fractures to her skull and face and surgeons had to remove one of her eyes because it was so badly damaged.

Doctors said her injuries showed she had been beaten at least 15 times with the bat.

She spent three months in hospital, but two weeks after being allowed home she died from a broken neck when she fell down a set of stairs.

The thug was eventually jailed for eight years for attempted murder, and two accomplices, aged 15 and 16, where given two-year supervision orders.

Stockport coroner's court heard Miss Chapman's horrifying account of how she came face to face with her attacker in a statement she gave to police days after the attack.

Detective Sergeant Paul Moores told a hushed courtroom how Miss Chapman was woken by a creaking on the stairs and then saw a figure on the landing.

"I was looking down at him and he was looking up at me," Miss Chapman told police. "He had staring eyes which made him look mad or drugged up.

"He was waving and swinging the bat around in a vicious manner, there was no doubt in my mind that he was going to kill me.

"I clearly remember his face, it was vicious. If he had been playing baseball with that bat he could not have hit me any harder.

"He continued to hit me while I was on the floor, and on the floor was some jellied slime, and I remember thinking he had knocked my brains out."

Pathologist Dr William Lawler told the court although Miss Chapman suffered loss of vision, physical and psychological effects from the attack, it could not be directly linked to her death from a fall down stairs.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Coroner John Pollard said he found it "utterly abhorrent that an elderly lady who seems to have spent her time feeding her fish, collecting flowers on her garden, reading Mills and Boon novels - all those pleasant pastimes - should be attacked in her own home by people who can only be described as despicable low-life.

"I have no doubt in my mind that Miss Chapman's mobility, vision and self-confidence were deeply affected by the assault that previously occurred."